I no sooner post than I see you don’t capitalize Obama, either. Now I’m really intrigued!

“trump seems extremely unlikely…”

Just curious – what’s with the refusal to capitalize Trump, even at the beginning of a sentence? Your postings make it clear that you know where the shift key is located.

Stuff like that just contributes to scrollover after a while, like the ‘Trum’ guy.

No doubt, obama does get plenty of blame, but we’ve seen “conservative” media, and many in the GOP dramatically change their tune in the 2015 / 2016 campaign season.

Much of what these people had said they stood for, for years, really didn’t seem to matter. What once elicited “RINO!!!” recriminations were now a-okay.

Reflecting on the increasing rancor intoned from 2008 on, seems that they helped inflame the division rather than help build a constructive way forward.

Is it all an alt-r strategy, to parallel the Ayers or Wrights machinations “that work” on the left? IDK

Intentionally or not, the “conservative” media and their GOP enablers / opportunists essentially laid the ground work to make a man like trump acceptable.

As far as I’m concerned, Obama drove that polarization by his bait-and-switch tactics pretending he was a centrist, moderate, pragmatic, unifying figure when he was just a common garden-variety hard-left community organizer with some Ivy League credentials.

Once upon a time I was a (very) minor leftist community organizer. I knew that guy. I knew how that works. When I saw Bill Ayers’s and Rev. Wright’s name next to Obama’s I knew what we were in for.

The narrative and tenor in conservative media has been rather “hot” since 2008 (and, arguably, well before then). Things that are absolutely okay for trump to promote, would garner cries of “RINO!!!” only a year or so ago.

True, escalation doesn’t always continue. However, it takes someone(s) who is/are willing to do a reset. trump seems extremely unlikely to be one to do that.

That said, I hope you are right about this time.

This is a great opportunity, but…

We’ll see.

With time and events I believe we will see a shift to more moderate appeals for broader support. On paper that’s what Obama said he was going to do and instead he gave us much more polarization in pursuit of power. That’s a big reason we got Trump.

Ultimately, in our form of democracy, political disagreement in our legislative chambers, more or less, reflects the disagreement in the populace.

We could argue if the design of the deliberative process itself favors gravitation towards a leftward movement.

But, we cannot disagree that relying on EO’s and similar, or on “nuclear options”, erodes the check and balance mechanisms toward centralizing more power.

In the end, would trump and the GOP close the door after using it, or leave it open for the dems (or worse) to abuse it?
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Aside from the folly of escalation of central powers, it is hard to deny that the way trump is going about fulfilling his “promises” is playing largely to his base, driving down support rather than building it.

If nobody really tries to build broad support, it is rather disingenuous to come down on the opposition for taking action that slows down or blocks legislative processes.

So, best just to label it for what it is, a naked power play, and not hide behind blaming of the other elected officials.

When obama played the blame game we certainly hated it.
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Building support also applies to overseas relations as well, not just the electorate. There, trump’s actions seem designed to alienate even those who might be sympathetic.

Take his call with the Australian PM. Would like to know how the Russian call went on that same day, as it seems it was a fair bit more friendly in comparison. Seems upside down, dismissive of the basis for being allies.

Maybe trump was surprised about the obama deal wrt refugees. Yes, he should be bothered by it, but should he have been surprised by it? Was his team not prepared? Was his response to the PM even appropriate?

It is far easier to get “tough” with one’s friends, but far harder to deal with foes. This can easily be seen as bullying vs being a fair broker / friend / ally.
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If I were leading Russia, I’d be laughing and very pleased right now, and be looking for how to exploit the new leeway I have in the fog this all creates for the US and the west.
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As I wrote about “nobody dramatically reducing government”, yes, knew about the 2 for 1 deal. A step in the right direction, but tons of questions on how this is implemented. Might be gamed in practice so as not to be very meaningful. Might not be much different than is in their power to do today. Remains to be seen just what gets done with it. Hopefully, some good.

(Would much prefer a blanket sunset clause on legislation that makes laws subject to a new vote at a future date, and a prioritization of existing legislation for establishing sunset dates for them. Laws that were most useful would survive while others die rather than live on indefinitely through legacy momentum)

Also, trump’s recent actions and rhetoric seem to favor more government oversight, just in different areas (aside from his mixed message during the campaign).

His cabinet picks have some promise in this way.

So, mixed bag, until we see what really happens.

The rest of his first 100 days should be something of a firmer indicator.

Big Maq: Agreed. Even under Reagan the government grew — but at least Reagan was trying and he did reduce the rate of expansion.

I love Trump’s “2 for 1” rollback on federal regulations. I’m skeptical it will work because it’s a rule that will be easy to game. For instance, “OK, we’ll give up two regulations on buggy whip manufacture but H20 is a pollutant falling under EPA pollution requirements.”

One problem is that the two parties do have areas of serious incompatibility. It’s hard to find a satisfactory compromise between raising taxes and reducing them, going to war or not going to war.

Another problem is that the Democrats’ idea of status quo seems to be the US steadily moving a degree or two to the left each year and it’s a terrible problem, unAmerican even, if Republicans get in the way.

Republicans, or conservatives anyway, oppose that drift. As WF Buckley wrote of his magazine, “National Review”:

It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so…

Democrats act as though Republicans want to take the country back to 1920, if not 1850. But there would have been no Tea Party had the US government, taxes and regulations remained what they had been in 1996 — the middle of the Clinton administration.

And before we justify Cheney’s intentions by blaming the dems for “abusing” the fillibuster, it sure looks like the GOP were escalating the use of fillibusters for some decades…
https://i.imgur.com/pDgxItZ.png – from the Atlantic

No doubt, if we research it thoroughly enough we might find other dem or GOP leaders voicing the desire to “go nuclear” prior to 2005.

Of course, all along, the dems did their share of escalation too.
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Still, notice the huge increase in fillibusters in 2008? Who was behind that?

Setting aside the rationale for each instance, when faced with that volume, it is a wonder that Reid didn’t just extend the “nuclear option” to everything. He technically could just as easily gone all the way, but stopped. Not sure he’d have taken much more of a political hit than he did on what he moved forward on.

It seems he had been using the threat of “going nuclear” as a tool to minimize the GOP fillibusters, but given the escalation, he pulled the trigger.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/why-harry-reid-went-nuclear/281728/
http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-option-filibuster-harry-reid-senate-rules-mitch-mcconnell-2013-7

Was the SCOTUS option left on the table as another negotiating tool? He did have 52 votes for what he did. Could it be that he couldn’t muster enough votes to go that far? Who knows for certain?

With this history in mind, Reid’s talk, pre election, is just a continuation of threats each side has been using. It carries teeth because he did use it before and followed through. But, the GOP are no angels wrt this kind of threat.
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So, yes, escalation. That works out for everyone.

Each side wants to get their way, looking for a shortcut, without having to work through the deliberative process.

We have to save the Republic by changing the rules to make it easier to get our way.

EO’s here. Nuclear option there.

Only, what pyrrich win that may all turn out to be, the next time the dems get a bicameral majority and POTUS, who then take where we left off and make it even easier to reverse everything.

The way things are going, it may not be that far away. The dems thought destiny was theirs, and overplayed their hand. Now, similarly, trump and his followers think they have a “mandate”, and seem inclined to overplay their own hand.

Meanwhile, despite all this, nobody is dramatically reducing the size and scope of government – the real issue.

We’ll see.